The Unconventional Origins Of The Offspring's First Hit

Publish date: 2024-05-03

"If you're under 18 you won't be doing any time / Hey, come out and play"

Rather than advocating violence, these lines written by Offspring frontman Dexter Holland were a tragic satire of the inner-city gang violence he saw in Compton, a Los Angeles County city known as "Hub City." As Kerrang! explains, Holland as a college student used to ride his "crappy car" through Compton on the way to the University of Southern California (USC). On the way he witnessed brutality between rival gangs Crips and Bloods, which inspired him to write "Come Out and Play" (and explains why the song's "You gotta keep 'em separated" line has a conspicuously cholo accent).

The track's lyrics tell the rest of the story, saying, "By the time you hear the siren / It's already too late / One goes to the morgue and the other to jail / One guy's wasted and the other's a waste," "Your never-ending spree of violence and hate / Is gonna tie your own rope," and, "It goes down the same as the thousand before / No one's getting smarter / No one's learning the score."  Holland himself had no love for police, partly stemming from a tear-gas incident he experienced at a Dead Kennedys concert once, which may have heightened his sympathy towards victims of violence and in the end, made him just the right person to disguise and deliver an anti-violence message within a simple punk song.

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